During the implementation of the SAFEWAY project several solutions contributing to improve the resilience of transport infrastructure to extreme events were developed.
WP 2 has identified risk factors affecting hazard and vulnerability and provided an integration of hazard inventories, databases and maps as well as tools for quantification of their impacts. Critical hazards (natural and human-made) and plausible failure modes have been identified. Guidance for assessment of the probability and severity of service disruption, by using structural and functional vulnerability functions, has also been provided.
In WP3, an analysis of remote sensing technologies that contribute to more efficient monitoring of critical assets. These include satellite technologies and terrestrial technologies to obtain geometrical and radiometric data from the studied environments with high accuracy. After having a clear vision of which specific technologies can contribute to the monitoring requirements of operators' owners, several monitoring scenarios have been defined and clear data acquisition protocols have been proposed.
Crowdsourcing methods for gathering data regarding vehicle parameters were developed in WP4. Interface definition was formulated on extracting floating car data for area wide road network monitoring. Also, a web service was designed for designating restriction zones by the traffic management operator in order to influence planned car routes so that such areas are avoided.
The development of performance predictive models for critical infrastructure assets was conducted in WP5. Deterministic models were used for predicting the deterioration of infrastructure components. Stochastic models were also used for predicting the future condition, and to overcome the lack of inspection records. Additionally, work was developed for the infrastructure risk-based models, consisting of the production of hotspot-maps for wildfires and floods situation and consideration of fragility curves for different assets. Impact assessment at regional scale, i.e. assessment of probability of failure modes leading to reduced mobility was also conducted considering a mesoscopic traffic model.
WP6 concentrated on developing of a robust, resilience-based decision support framework for terrestrial transportation. The first task was to establish a general value system regarding network resilience, based on monetized direct and indirect consequences of inadequate asset performance due to hazards and/or man-made events. The current asset management practice for quality assessment of road/rail infrastructure and the state-of-the-art research on the Key Performance indicators (KPIs) were investigated.
The SAFEWAY IT platform was developed under WP7, which comprised all the task to compile the databases, models, and services developed in the aforementioned WPs.
An additional WP8 was focused in reconsideration of resilience in a longer term. This included: i) an effective Emergency Plan Guideline for linear infrastructures; ii) a wide identification of adaptation needs after evaluating the performance of each of the critical assets when facing each of the hazards that could have an impact of them and, iii) novel laboratory research, related to the characterization and study of Shape Memory Steels (SMS) and Optical Fiber Sensors.
Considering the wide range of solutions with potential for valorization and/or exploitation, a Business and Exploitation Plan has developed that includes the identification of 22 tangible results, from which 12 were classified as key exploitable results whose exploitation strategy is currently under development by the corresponding owner partner.
